Wednesday, February 22, 2017

With each
new orchestra album, pianist-composer Satoko Fujii deepens and refines one of
the most startling and singular concepts in large ensemble free jazz today.
Peace (January 27, 2017, Libra Records), the fifth album with her 15-member
Orchestra Tokyo, is no exception. A tribute to the late guitarist Kelly Churko,
the recording features special guests drummer Peter Orins and trumpeter
Christian Pruvost with whom Fujii and her husband Natsuki Tamura perform in the
collective quartet KAZE. Together these friends and colleagues create one of
the most personal of Fujii's 18 (!) big band albums.

"I
always try to come up with a special concept for each recording project,"
Fujii says. "When we recorded Peace, KAZE was in Japan touring. The two
French musicians are very different from the Japanese musicians in the
orchestra, so I thought it might be interesting to see how they all could draw
inspiration from one another. I wanted to bring their voices into my Tokyo
orchestra to get some kind of creative chemical reaction. I like how it came
out. I think it succeeded."

Besides
introducing special guests to the orchestra, Fujii also wanted to pay tribute
to one of her most beloved collaborators, Canadian guitarist Kelly Churko, who
lived in Tokyo for more than a decade and was a member of the Orchestra Tokyo
from 2009 and the First Meeting quartet (Churko appears on the orchestra's 2010
release, Zakopane and First Meeting's Cut the Rope CD.) "He was an amazing
person and such a talented musician," Fujii says.

Fujii wrote
"Peace" in Churko's memory. From the title, you might not expect the
full throttle intensity and explosive energy of the composition. Fujii
showcases the entire sax section in a pulsating, triple forte collective
improvisation to open the piece and the energy level never drops as baritone
saxophonist Ryuichi Yoshida delivers a roaring solo, alto saxophonist Kunihiro
Izumi swoops and wails and the drummers engage in earth-shaking duet. As Fujii
explains, "Kelly loved noise music and crazy heavy metal sometimes, but he
was the guy who was very peaceful and loved peace."

Churko died
of cancer in 2014, so the sprawling half-hour composition "2014" has
a tie to the guitarist as well. Working on a large musical canvas, Fujii has
plenty of space to explore different aspects of the orchestra, from extended
melodies to massive orchestral chords to subtle orchestrations. Fujii deploys
duo and trio combinations of improvisers to enrich the written material. First
up are the special guests Pruvost and Orins, followed by trombonist Yasuyuki
Takahashi and tenor saxophonist Masaya Kimura. The energy level of the
performance jumps suddenly as the drummers go at it together and then
trumpeters Natuski Tamura and Toshihiro Koike chatter and soar before bright
and bold full ensemble blasts. A trio improvisation with trumpeter Takao
Watanabe, trombonist Haguregumo Nagamatsu and tenorist Kenichi Matsumoto
unfolds over a funky beat before bassist Toshiki Nagata has the final say.

Tamura's
"Jasper" opens serenely, with featured soprano saxophone soloist
Sachi Hayasaka improvising almost a call to prayer. The music builds to an
impressive full orchestra crescendo before retreating to the hushed drone that
began the piece. "Jasper was a cat of our old friend's, Jane Wang in
Boston," Fujii explains. "He was Natsuki's best friend. They could
communicate somehow and enjoyed napping together."

The album
closes with "Beguine Nummer Eins," a melodic dance number whose title
is a legacy of Fujii and Tamura's years spent in Berlin. (They are now based
back in Japan.) Trumpeter Yoshihito Fukumoto delivers a robust, lyrical
performance.

Critics and
fans alike hail pianist and composer Satoko Fujii as one of the most original
voices in jazz today. She's "a virtuoso piano improviser, an original
composer and a bandleader who gets the best collaborators to deliver,"
says John Fordham in The Guardian. In
concert and on more than 80 albums as a leader or co-leader, she synthesizes
jazz, contemporary classical, avant-rock and Japanese folk music into an innovative
music instantly recognizable as hers alone. Her most recent group, Satoko Fujii
Tobira with trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, bassist Todd Nicholson, and drummer
Takashi Itani, released their debut recording Yamiyo Ni Karasu in 2015.
"There are pulse-pounding rhythms, vibrant tones and dark chords woven
together into a multi-shaded tapestry of soundŠWhat an absolute pleasure to
listen to Satoko Fujii." wrote Travis Rogers Jr. in The Jazz Owl. Over the
years, Fujii has led some of the most consistently creative ensembles in modern
improvised music, including the ma-do quartet, the Min-Yoh Ensemble, and an
electrifying avant-rock quartet featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of The Ruins.
She has also established herself as one of the world's leading composers for large
jazz ensembles, leading Cadence magazine to call her, "the Ellington of
free jazz." Her ultimate goal: "I would love to make music that no
one has heard before."

Although
Fujii is renowned as a pianist, her keyboard playing is not heard on Peace.
"For me, composing is one of the most delicious parts of being a
musician," she says. "I compose the piece but the composition is more
like the starting point for improvising. With my orchestra, conducting is my
improvisation. I can arrange my compositions on the stage with a lot of
inspiration from my bandmates' playing. I'm not playing piano as much with my
orchestra now. Many times, I don't play at all. I am just too busy directing
and cueing the band. My band is my instrument."